Dimension
by Arbitrary Escape
Summary: Hikigaya Hachiman lived in the third dimension and loved looking at life through the second. Rating for topic.


Summary: Quick drabble inspired by a paragraph in "Of Losses and Gains" by diceWW.

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**Disclaimer: **Characters are property of Watari Wataru

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The confines of Hikigaya Hachiman's room have not been made clear to anyone but Hikigaya Hachiman and Hikigaya Komachi. However, the latter has only known the early days of her brother's space and in fact, though rarely known, has not made an appearance within the borders of such a place in a large number of years although he has made appearances within her own private walls. The reason for such is not fairness or the lack thereof but rather the belief of Hikigaya Hachiman in his stalwart pursuit of total sanctity and havenhood. He believes, to this day, that there should be nothing more sacred than one's own space, whether it be mental or physical. As such, the very act of acceptance and even the smallest of touches have never done without the utmost thought and care. Of course, Komachi knows this. After all, he is but her beloved Onii-chan.

Thus, when he met his end at the hands of an ill-fated car accident, she does not know what to do. Hikigaya Komachi's first instinct was to scream; she obeyed it. But that was then. And this is now. Now is after the funeral. Now is two mornings, five hours, four minutes, and twenty-six seconds after. She knows because she has counted, even in her sleep - something that would have earned her a lot of points, if there were anyone to give them to her. Instead, the points she earns are pinpricks that dance along her skin and coerce muffled screams that drag out of her throat and into her pillow.

Why did he have to die? The question is inane. Mundane. Mute. Pointless. Moot. He is dead; she did not need a doctor to tell her because she saw it with her own two eyes. And yet, the question persists. As does the aching of her heart. _It hurts_. _It hurts_; _where are you_, _Onii_-_chan_? Those questions spill forward but are met with the silence of deaf ears and dumb speech.

Hikigaya Komachi's time is utterly consumed by memories of a brother that she realizes is missed only by a select few people. It sickens her to say that even a handful is too many who know him, though many more know of him now more than ever. To number those he exposed himself to would include only his family and that girl Komachi never found the name of. Anger burns in her, at the world that can easily look aside from this. But more than anger at the world, indignation sits in her stomach, boiling a stew of unwept tears and vomit because of all people, even the Hikigaya parents are among those who have already swept aside the boy once called Hikigaya Hachiman.

She concludes that of all the people in the world, he was lonely half by choice and half by necessity; but between that divide there existed a special space. Her space. Hers and hers alone; utterly, irrevocably possessed by every measure of her existence because she was Hikigaya Hachiman's sister and he loved her. The thought of his love makes her ache again because she will never hear the words "Welcome home" from his lips ever again in that remarkably deadpan, deadbeat voice lilted with the gentlest of shy smiles and the awkward waving of a hand too cramped from writing and playing video games.

It almost causes her to snap. She looks up and stares at her ceiling until her eyelids feel the weight of expectations and slap themselves closed. When she wakes, she finds herself looking across the hall. Her room is adjacent to his; the distance is so close. Miniscule by human standards, but proudly built by the very same metrics. Established almost as though they were neighboring states or countries.

And it is at this moment, three days and fourteen hours after her brother's demise, that Hikigaya Komachi wanders into his room and is shocked to find that it is utterly clean, save for the freshest membranes of dust that coat themselves along his belongings.

Hikigaya Hachiman, she remembers, was never known for cleanliness but strictness so she guesses that, in some way, it makes sense that not a single thing is out of place. Her eyes find his desk and note how the only picture on it is of him holding her, though it's anything but a recent photo. Within that frame she is not a girl on the verge of her teen years. Instead she is small, tiny, and has just the smallest tuft of dark hair and not even a sign of the signature ahoge of her family's genetics. She is held in awe and gently clutched, while bundled in a swaddling mass of cloth, by her older brother who can't be older than five.

Her face does not flame with embarrassment at being so tiny or being kept in a cocoon for longer than a child should because she sees how much Hikigaya Hachiman exhibits life in adoring the only beacon in his seemingly isolated existence. It is only with great pain that she tears herself away from the sight, her fingers shaking as she tries not to drop the frame. Then, she turns her attentions to the rest of his desk.

She flips through his notebooks and wonders if her Onii-chan started to think perverted things. Instead, she finds doodles that capture the monotony of his day-to-day. There is no pattern except the fact that it is school. At least, until halfway through. Then she starts to see a girl appear, and her heart stops. That girl's smile is pretty, her captured mannerisms cute, and her tired sighing breathtaking. Immediately, it is _her_. Komachi doesn't know her name and doesn't know her relationship to Hachiman but knows that whatever it was, he thought it was remarkable, even if there was none to begin with - there are no pictures of them interacting - and she can't help but feel a hurt that borders on pity.

How sad must it have been to be Hikigaya Hachiman that the only semblance of social circles were the penmarks and sketches of graphite that colored school books? Eventually, Komachi looks up and sees the clock. Forty minutes past two in the morning, she notes. But she isn't tired. Her eyes flicker over and she finds her fingers combing through shelf after shelf of books she half-understands. Many of the titles aren't in Japanese and she doubts all of the ones that are foreign are solely English.

The books are aligned with another tight sense of cleanliness and bound in some order that she can't fathom but guesses must have made sense to their reader, Her index finger stops at a title she can't read and frowns at. A quick internet search on her phone reveals that it is a work by a French writer, his master work, and is a world-renowned story that has played on the Broadway stage and held several movie adaptations. When she converts the title to Japanese, her breath hitches and another stream of tears fall down.

Was this what all he thought himself to be, she wondered. A wretch with no hope? She refuses to believe it because the more she looks at things, it seems like her brother's death is more of a chance to escape without shame and backlash than a heroic act of a boy who tried to do something with his life and limbs. An inordinate, indescribable amount of shame creeps up on her skin and she almost drops the thick book as she pushes it back into its place. That shame extends when she realizes for the smallest of seconds, she hated Hikigaya Hachiman. Now, she only hates herself for the thought because it's stupid; this isn't the only book he has in his library after all.

Komachi shakes her head and falls back onto her brother's bed and takes in its scent, noticing how it smells of mango and coconut, the shampoo and conditioner she bought for him last weekend. She cries again.

Exploring into his room did not make her feel any better nor did it make her feel any worse, she thinks. All it did was make her feel and she isn't sure what to make of that. She sure wishes an older brother was here to explain it all, though. Silence persists in her vigil and when the sun comes up, Komachi has dug through her brother's entire room and finally accepted one vital fact: Hikigaya Hachiman was just another boy. Then another: Hikigaya Hachiman was a lonely unknown. Then a third: she knew only the bits and pieces of Hikigaya Hachiman he showed her.

The fourth and final fact she miserably comes to terms with is that Hikigaya Hachiman will never get the chance to show her again.

More brooding ensues and she hears sounds outside; bikes and footsteps and notices how sunlight breaks from behind the edges of the window's blinds and she idly remembers that it's just about time for her to head to school. Having missed so many days, she knows that she's on the verge of being set behind for a good portion.

And for the first time in her life, this young girl blinks as she's sat on the floor of her room knowing that she's fine with that because she needed all this time.

As small as his life was, Hikigaya Hachiman played a large part in Hikigaya Komachi. That is indisputable. And he will continue to do so, she thinks. But there is a sinking feeling that she hates and she knows it's rising like the tide that so loves to ebb and flow, the same tide that sweeps Chiba with the salty breeze of summer morning: her mourning has come and gone and the cracks haven't begun to heal but she can stand again.

She hates it. Fights it for all of five minutes before her tiredness weighs her down and she's thinking about how her brother's hugs protected her how his head-pats and laughs calmed her temper, wiped off her pouts.

_I miss you_, she says. _I love you_, she doesn't. The Hikigaya child wonders who Hachiman was because all that's left of him is her memories. She wipes her tears and lays down. The familiar darkness of sleep swings itself downward again and her last thought is how much she wishes that she never had to share her brother with a world that didn't want him.

In her dreams, he's there but he's quiet as usual and smiling, unlike usual. She runs at him and hugs him. Or tries. She falls through him and the moment that happens, the moment she hits the ground in that void she calls a mind, she screams and wakes up, chanting, panting. To an empty home.

It takes some time, but she eventually settles and thinks. Some tea and some rustling in bed help as she finds herself lost in thought again.

There is no vow, no promise, no swearing of vengeance or thirst to live on the edge. There is no push to become a better person or to change the world so that this doesn't happen to anyone else. There is just a girl that misses her older brother.

And then, in the quickest of snaps, the epiphany hits. The words come to her lips as they tremble. She closes her eyes and nods her head up, hoping he hears her. "_Thank you for being you_."


End file.
